A desperate mum robbed a woman in the street after she found out her daughter needed a life-threatening operation.

Jayne Hartley, 36, sought money to take her daughter to the US for medical treatment when she snatched a purse from a student nurse, a court heard.

The mother learned her fate for the robbery while her child was in intensive care at James Cook University Hospital.

Visibly upset and tearful in the dock, she said “I’m so sorry” as Teesside’s top judge passed sentence on her yesterday.

Judge Simon Bourne-Arton QC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, told Hartley: “This was a serious offence. But, and here is a big ‘but’, when you carried out that offence you were a desperate woman, desperate for very understandable, maternal reasons.

“You knew or believed that money might be the answer. That is why I’m satisfied, and anybody would be satisfied, you committed this offence. Your daughter is unfortunately very seriously ill. There is nobody but you to care for her.

“Nobody sensibly can think that this is anything other than an exceptional circumstance which would allow me to suspend the sentence I’m now going to impose upon you.”

He gave her a 10-month jail term suspended for 18 months with a 60-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

He also praised her for keeping out of trouble for 13 years after a life of “misery”.